


The Wind is Low, the Birds Will Sing

by dickviolin



Category: Blur (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abandonment, Kid Fic, M/M, Parenthood, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 13:21:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18053282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dickviolin/pseuds/dickviolin
Summary: In which Damon turns up on Graham's doorstep with a baby. Oh dear...Find me onTumblrandTwitter





	The Wind is Low, the Birds Will Sing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is no reflection whatsoever on Suzi, who I'm sure is an excellent mother in real life

It started with a knock on the door. He’d been halfway through _Crimewatch_ and a plate of oven chips. They weren’t just knocking, whoever it was, they were hammering. They sounded angry. Or desperate.

“I’m coming,” Graham called from the landing. He was wearing his ugliest socks, the ones he wore on winter evenings. When he opened the door, it was the blue eyes that he saw first, then the little earring, then the mop of blond hair, then- and _oh fuck_ \- the car seat. Damon Albarn was outside his flat with a baby.

“That yours? Or did you nick it?”

It didn’t seem an unreasonable thing to say. An insult about his _shoes_ , of all things, had been the very first thing Damon had said to him, so the first thing he got to say back in god-knows-how-many months should have been equally cutting.

“She’s mine,” Damon said. His voice had something missing.

“And who else’s? Unless the Albarn race have learnt to reproduce asexually…”

“Suzi.”  
“And where’s Suzi?”

Damon shrugged. “Gone.” Then, “Can I stay tonight?”

“What?”

“I’m- I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t know what else to do.”

And later on Damon would ask why, why did you let me in, after the way I’d treated you, and Graham would say something like, _well, you looked so pathetic, your clothes all ratty, and you looked tired_. And that would be partially true. But Graham had let him in that night for the same reason he’d always done. It was Damon, and there was always something unfinished.

 

It would have made for a neat story if he could pinpoint the moment he started to detest Damon. If he could say it was when they released ‘Country House’, or when Damon moved to Notting Hill, or when Alex started measuring his champagne in Old Testament kings. It wasn’t like that, of course. He would never be able to condense all that into a film scene or a two-thousand-word newspaper column. It took him most of the 90s, but eventually, he stopped recognising his best friend. The track marks on his arms. The lofty ideas he had. The constant nagging to go to meetings with American record company people. The fucking brass sections. Graham began retreating into himself, something he’d never had to do around Damon.

“Y’all right?” Dave or Alex would say as he moodily nursed a pint at a hotel bar. Or they wouldn’t say anything at all. They all had their own lives. Graham, as always, was the weirdo no one wanted to sit with. He’d just bring the mood down.

 

Damon placed the car seat on the coffee table and the pair of them regarded the baby. The baby, in turn, regarded them.

“What’s she called?”

“Missy.”

“Missy?” Graham pulled a face. “As in Missy Elliot?”

“Pepper?” Damon shot back. “At least I looked in the charts, not my spice rack.”

“You’re lucky she’s cute.”

“She missed all my ugly genes.”

“She’s got your nose, though.”

“I’ve asked her for it back.”

Graham smiled despite himself but blinked it away.

“You can’t stay, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“You can crash for tonight, but tomorrow you need to go and find Suzi and sort this out.”

Damon said nothing.

“You clean?” Graham said after a moment. He even lowered his voice, as if the baby could understand. Damon flinched like he did when he was a teenager and the football team would yell _poof_ at him as they marched past.

“I’m clean,” he said defensively. “I went to Iceland.”

“The country or the supermarket?”

“Did a proper rehab program and everything. You can check if you want.” He spat that last bit and turned himself away from Graham. “You sober?” he added petulantly.

Graham said nothing. Damon _tsk_ -ed.

“Pot, meet kettle.”

“I’m going to bed,” Graham said. “There’s nappies and stuff of Pepper’s under the sink. No cot, though.”

“All right.”

He wrapped his arms round himself and tucked his chin into his chest. He looked younger than Graham remembered him. He looked just like that teenager he’d met, in the gloom of Graham’s living room. He looked small and scared. He looked cold. Graham wanted to reach out and touch him. He knew better, though. He’d known better for a long time. Just who the fuck was he to ask if Graham was sober? _Prick_.

 

“Budge up.” Damon’s toes were freezing cold but his breath on Graham’s back was warm and wet.

“Huh?” Graham said, but Damon was already pushing him along the bed and stuffing himself under the covers.

In theory it was all impossibly grown-up. They were in a hostel in Antwerp that they’d paid for with their own money. Graham was about to go to uni, and Damon had just dropped out, and they had a six pack of bad Belgian beer under the bed. In reality, they were cold and hadn’t brought enough francs to do anything interesting. Damon wouldn’t stop moaning about drama school and about how his mum wanted him to go back, and Graham wasn’t even sure he wanted to go to uni, even if it was to doss about for three years doing fine arts.

But it was midnight. The moon shone through the thin net curtains and his best friend in the world was curled up next to him.

“Spring’s gone out in my bed,” Damon said by way of explanation. Graham shifted over to face him. He burrowed into Graham’s chest. He’d had his hair cropped fashionably for his headshots and now it was tickling Graham’s chin.

“I’m trying to sleep,” Graham said.

“Me too,” Damon shot back, but even then Graham knew when Damon was just messing around, taking the piss out of his oh-so-serious friend.

“Gra,” Damon duly added after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“I’m really glad I met you.”

“Are you pissed?”

“No! Jesus, do I have to be pissed to be heartfelt?”

“Do you have to be heartfelt at all? It’s the middle of the night.” But Damon was pulling him closer with two arms that, when they weren’t buried under a big jacket, Graham had spent all week staring at, lovely golden skin, and the hair-

“I really, really love you, Gra.”

“I _really, really_ love you, too,” Graham said. He could see where this was going. It wouldn’t be the first time that-

 

Damon touched his lips to Graham’s, just once, just lightly, just to gauge his reaction. And part of him wanted to say, _fuck off, Damon, it’s the middle of the night, don’t you have a girlfriend, get out of my bed, you poof_. He kissed him back all the same. Damon always tasted of the outside, of the funny little Enid Blyton woods where they’d first done this, of adventure. It had been Damon who’d told him to apply to Goldsmith’s. Even if he had his doubts about it, Damon was the reason he was moving up the Overground and into the city. So in the middle of the night, in the middle of Belgium, he kissed him, and then reached his hands down his tummy, brushed the little dusting of hair above his crotch, and then down into his boxers to wrap his hand round his already hard cock.

 

He must have taken Damon by surprise: he gave a little yelp as Graham began to work him.

“Shh,” Graham said, but he’d got into the spirit of it now and he was cut off by his own giggles. So what if the others in the dormitory heard them. They were in Europe. Everyone was a bit more gay over there. He wrapped calloused fingers around Damon’s shaft and listened to the hitches in his breath.

“Fuck,” Damon muttered into the dark. Then he buried his head in Graham’s neck and spilled warm come onto his hand. Graham felt him go limp. He could smell his hair and the cheap shampoo he’d been using since he’d gone to drama school.

“You want me to return the favour?” Damon whispered at last.

“No, you’re all right,” Graham said, and then the darkness swallowed them up.

 

His floorboards creaked. He knew exactly which patches made the most noise and he was good at dodging them when he went from the bathroom back to bed. Damon was approaching, and Damon didn’t know where the floorboards creaked, and with every hesitant step Graham could hear how little they knew each other.

“Can I-” a voice behind him bounced off the high ceiling.

“There’s a sofa bed.”

“Right.” No retreating creaks. Graham turned over. There was Damon, standing at the door. His shoulders were slumped and if Graham wasn’t mistaken he was either on the verge of tears or had just stopped.

“You better not kick,” Graham said. Damon got into bed next to him and pulled the duvet tight round them both.

“Where’s the baby?” Graham said.

“Sitting room.”

“Right. I’ll leave the door open so you can hear her.”

“Thanks.”

Graham turned back round so they were back-to-back and switched the light off. In the darkness, the feeling of someone next to him in the bed was even more acute. The weight on the other side of the mattress. It had been a while.

“Gra?”

“Go to sleep.”

“I just wanna say thanks. That’s all.”

“Right. You’re welcome.”

He waited for anything else- _I’m sorry, I’ve treated you like a right bastard, I’m a selfish prick, I’m a hypocrite_. But there was nothing but silence and Graham realised he was fast asleep.

 

Damon had grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him away. Alex was striding on ahead, cigarette in hand, towards the pub. The setting sun blazed orange.

“Is he,” Damon said, deadly serious, looking Graham right in the eye, “Planning to do anything about that fucking fringe?”

Graham looked from Damon to Alex. The raging-ego thing was going to be a serious problem, he suspected. He hoped this drummer Damon knew wasn’t a Keith Moon type.

“No, I don’t think he’s going to do anything about the fringe.”

Damon narrowed his eyes and Graham could hear the cogs in his head turning.

“Fine. He’ll do. We need a bassist. He plays bass.”

“He speaks French as well,” Graham pointed out. This wasn’t strictly true. Alex was crap at French. Crap by anyone’s standards, let alone those of someone who had decided to devote three years to studying it. Still, saying they had a bassist with a fringe who spoke French would do a lot to offset Damon’s whole drama school image.

“Are you shagging him?” Damon’s eyes were even narrower.

“What? Jesus, no.”

“It would be fine if you were,” Damon said. “He’s fit. I can see why you would.”

“I’m not shagging him.”

“Good.” Damon trotted off to catch up with Alex and Graham trudged after them, stuck, as ever, behind his glasses and his inability to know what the ever-loving _fuck_ was going on in his best friend’s head.

 

When Graham managed to pull himself out of bed, it was a little after ten. Damon was balancing the baby in one arm and a plate of toast in the other and was scooting along the kitchen floor to the table in a pair of Graham’s socks. Graham had got that table from a car boot sale ages ago. One of the legs was shorter than all the others so it wobbled a lot. None of the chairs matched, either. He was plenty rich enough to buy a proper set, from a proper furniture maker, but he’d never got around to it.

“Morning,” Damon said. “You got coffee?”

“Only instant.”

“That’ll do me.”

They stood blinking at each other for a moment. Damon was smiling benignly. It took Graham a second to work out that he was implying that he, Graham, whose flat, lest _anyone_ forget, he was in, should make him a coffee.

Behind him, the microwave pinged. He hadn’t realised it was on. Out of reflex, he turned round and popped the door open with the knife he kept next to it (the catch had broken several months ago). It was a bottle of formula.

“Cheers,” Damon said. Graham handed it to him and watched as he began to feed the baby, and stared at her, utterly mesmerised.

“Milk, no sugar?” he found himself saying. Damon looked up and nodded, then went straight back to his daughter. _His daughter_. Graham turned away and filled the kettle.

 

And that was how Damon stayed another night, and then another, and then a whole week, and then a month. During the day, Graham would go out and busy himself so he didn’t have to look at the two of them. He’d mostly go to the pub. In the evenings, he’d stumble home and find Damon sitting on the sofa, half-asleep in front of _Match of the Day_. The baby- Graham refused to use her name- wasn’t sleeping through the night. The pair of them were permanently exhausted. He would go into the bathroom to shave in the morning and find Damon staring into space. Sometimes his eyes would be ringed with red and Graham knew he had been crying. He would wake up in the middle of the night and Damon would be sitting up in bed, feeding the baby while giving little gulped sobs. He would never let Damon know he was awake. He supposed he deserved a little privacy.

There was still no sign of Suzi, and Graham kept trying to find occasions to bring it up, but they never arrived, and then he’d go to bed and Damon would climb in next to him, and even though they went to sleep back to back every night, they would always wake up facing each other. Always wake up with Damon’s sighing on his shoulder.

 

Only once did they cross paths in the middle of the day. Graham was drunk, because he always was. Life was easier that way. He’d gone back to the flat to get his wallet because the barmaid at his usual boozer wanted to see if he was going to settle the tab any time soon. He opened the door to find Damon sprawled out in front of whatever shite they were showing at noon on a Wednesday on Channel 5. The baby was sleeping on his chest. If he hadn’t been pissed, Graham might have been quite moved by it. As it was, he just felt irritated that he had to be quiet in his own flat for the sake of someone else’s baby.

Damon looked up as he came in.

“Hey,” he said.

Graham grunted in response and began to search for his wallet among the pile of crap on the kitchen.

“Gra?”

He didn’t look up, just grunted again.

“When did you-” Damon coughed and trailed off, which meant he was uncomfortable with what he was saying. That suited Graham. If he could just find his wallet he could claim he was busy and run off.

“When did you start feeling like a dad?”

 

And he could have let himself get plunged into a well of memories. Of holding a tiny, red, screaming little creature that he was partially responsible for. Of knowing that neither of their deaths would erase the fact that she was his daughter or that he was her father. The way it made any drug you cared to name, any performance on any stage, any number one, seem completely insignificant. That fear and wonder.  But he didn’t. He just shrugged and said, “It’ll happen,” and went off to drink some more.

 

“You’ve really fucked it up this time.”

It was midnight and if the world would just stop spinning, he’d be able to see the moons. He was lying spread-eagled in a pile of glass. He was pretty sure his head was bleeding. His hands definitely were. Damon was standing over him, looking at him with disdain. He had, apparently, propped the baseball bat up against the tour bus. _Where did you get a baseball bat_ , Alex would ask him later. _Off Dave_ , he’d say. _Dave, where’d you get a baseball bat?_ And Dave would look up from his copy of _Private Eye_ and say, _I’m a drummer, aren’t I?_ , as if that made any sense. As if any of this made any sense.

“I can prove to you that this is art. I went to art school, you know.”

“You’re pissed.” Damon sounded disappointed, which was rich.

“No flies on you.” Graham struggled into a sitting position and reviewed the situation. He was still surrounded by broken glass. He was still bleeding. And every smashable bit of the tour bus had been smashed: the windows, the mirrors, the windscreen- even the hubcaps had taken a battering.

“What were you thinking?”

“I fucking hate America,” Graham muttered.

“ _I_ fucking hate America. I’m not going to fucking take it out on the tour bus.”

“You’re a better man than I, Damon All-bran.” He was slurring and he couldn’t remember if it was _a better man than I_ or _a better man than me_. He got up and staggered over to the door of the bus. It no longer existed: he’d smashed that in, too.

“I’m going to bed,” he said to no one in particular, and fell asleep in the seat next to the driver’s.

 

He woke up on a Sunday morning with a banging headache. He was alone in the bed. For a moment he thought that he’d dreamt the whole month. Then he heard the baby crying next door and he remembered. There was sweat pooling around the crook of his back. His mouth tasted like sand. He hauled himself into the kitchen. Damon was holding Missy close to his chest and feeding her from the bottle, quietly cooing a song.

 

“I fucking hate you.” The words, once out, couldn’t be unsaid. Graham could see how it hurt him and he felt a burning sense of joy like acid in his stomach. “You’ve never once had a selfless thought in your life.”

“I got clean for Missy,” he said, listlessly, “But I also got clean for you. Now look at you. Pissed-up on a Sunday morning.”

Graham wrapped his fingers tight around the can and felt the condensation seep into his skin. Tears were dripping off his face.

“I need you, Graham. Why d’you think I came here? You know me better than anyone else.”

“I don’t know who you are. I haven’t for a long time.”

Damon seemed to fold in on himself and the acid began to burn. It hurt. All of it hurt.

“I’ll have my stuff out of the flat by the end of the day,” Damon said, and Graham wondered if anything would cause him physical pain like the way Damon looked at him.

 

He drank until the barman became two barmen, and then he drank until he got into a fight with a bloke over the quiz machine, and then he was thrown out. It was nearly midnight. He found himself walking down by the riverside, and when that thought came to mind, he began whistling the Pete Seeger song, and then he was singing it aloud, head tipped back so he could see the man on the moon.

“I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield,” he sang, “Down by the riverside.”

A group of girls walked past him and laughed. He remembered the days when Alex could blink at a girl and she’d fall into bed with him. It was even easier with boys- he’d just have to tilt his head and they’d be going off to the toilets together. Sometimes, Graham remembered with a certain fondness, they wouldn’t even bother staggering into a cubicle, and Graham would wander in for a piss and find Alex holding onto the hand-dryer for dear life as some kid sucked him off.

“Slag,” he mused aloud.

“You fucking what?” Graham turned and there were several burly blokes with several skinny girlfriends on several arms.

“Sorry, mate,” he said. “Not you.”

“You fucking calling my bird a slag?” The burly men all approached him at once. The moon was startlingly big.

“Honestly, mate,” he said, before he opened his eyes to find himself horizontal in the gutter.

 

“Are you all right, sir?”

Once again he was lying on his back, drunk, bleeding. Only this time, it wasn’t Damon standing over him, but a copper. He wished it were Damon.

“I,” he said, but something had gone wrong with his voice.

“How much have you had to drink?” the copper said.

“Hn,” Graham tried again.

“Can you sit up for me, sir?”

Graham dutifully tried to plant his hands on the pavement and prop himself up, but they missed and he just fell a bit further and hit his head again.

The copper’s radio crackled and squeaked as he spoke into it. “Can we get an ambulance to Vauxhall Bridge? Cheers.”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” Graham tried to say, but instead he was sick down his front.

 

The next thing he knew, he was in a particularly grotty police station, staring down at his knees. He’d given a number to the duty sergeant. The first one he could reel off from memory. Knowing him, it would probably be his mum getting a call in the middle of the night. _We regret to inform you, Mrs Coxon, that your son is a pathetic fucking alcy. Could you possibly come down and pick him up?_

In the corner, a junkie shivered on the toilet with his keks around his ankles. Graham shut his eyes and laid his head on the cool concrete of the cell wall.

 

“Mr Coxon.” It was the duty sergeant. Graham roused himself and shuffled over to the cell door. A pair of officers accompanied him to the front of the station. It was a familiar set of blue eyes waiting for him behind the plexiglass screen.

“Damon,” he said.

“Didn’t Blur break up?” one of the coppers asked.

“They haven’t put anything out in ages,” another one said. Damon apparently shot them a look because they shut up sharpish. Graham didn’t meet his eye.

“You coming with me, then?” Damon said. Graham shrugged and let himself be led over. Damon didn’t seem disappointed. He didn’t really seem anything. Graham followed him out, and sat in the passenger’s seat of his car, which smelt newly-valeted. He hoped to God he was done puking. Damon put the radio on, the volume low, and Graham looked out the window. They drove in silence all the way to Notting Hill, where Damon pulled up outside a block of flats.

 

“I had to leave the baby alone,” he said.

“Oh,” Graham said, because he didn’t really know what to add. They went in. Damon had the lights on and in the corner of the sitting room the baby slept in her cot.

“Brand new,” he said, with a note of pride. Graham looked around. He’d known Damon as an annoying teenager, and as a drama school dropout who wore love beads, and now he knew Damon as a father, who nonetheless had wall hangings and a stash of dope sitting on the coffee table. _Plus ça change_.

“Come on,” Damon said, and led him into the bedroom. Graham quietly stripped to his pants- he was suddenly very hot; maybe Damon had the central heating on high- and clambered into bed next to him.

“Night night,” he said, to the moon.

“Night night,” Damon replied.

 

“Your brogues are crap, mate. Mine are the proper sort.”

And Damon in the black uniform blazer, tie loosened, top button undone. And Graham shuffling into the music block with his saxophone. And the graffiti in the toilets. And maths lessons that lasted years.

And the two of them, lying on their backs on the grass, the sun beating overhead, warming themselves like cats, and then Damon turning over to look him straight in the eye.

“We’re going to be best friends forever.”

“Forever and ever.”

And Damon leaning down to kiss him for the first time.

 

And despite it all, despite the hurt and the selfishness, Damon had always held his hand out to pull Graham up to his feet. Grass stains on his shirt and the purple of a bruise. He’d gone to the bottom of a can, again and again, trying to find something that would fill that hole like Damon did, but nothing worked. Damon was the one who would sit and listen to him twiddle about on the guitar for hours on end. Who never thought his ideas were stupid. Leaves in his hair, and the sun through the trees. Damon was a selfish prick, he was egomaniacal, he was stubborn as a mule. But he was _Graham’s_ selfish prick. And the taste of his tongue, and the gentle way he would hold Graham while they _fucked_ , or _made love_ , or whatever they decided to call it. He opened his eyes. He knew, then, what he had to do.

 

A month passed. He threw out all the cans he had in the fridge, and all the ones he kept in the cupboards, and all the little bottles of vodka he had hidden around the flat. He cleaned. He mopped the floors. He dusted every surface. He chucked out books and records, handing them over in enormous boxes to charity shops. He reduced his wardrobe to five t shirts and a selection of jeans and jumpers. He washed the windows, he washed under the taps, he dusted all the cobwebs from the cupboard with the boiler in it. He was done. He put the flat on the market. He went round to Damon’s as soon as the estate agent was gone.

 

“I’m sober,” he said. “You can trust me.” Damon had the baby on his hip and looked harangued. Behind him, in the house, a phone was ringing.

“I can trust you,” he repeated, neither a question nor a confirmation.

“I love you,” Graham said. “I don’t hate you. Even when you were a right bastard, I never hated you.”  
“I would have deserved it.” The baby muttered something in baby language. She caught Graham’s eye and smiled. Normally, his face was enough to make even the calmest baby cry.

“I love you too,” Damon said.

 

That night, while wrapped around each other, naked and warm and sweaty and spent, it was Graham’s turn to whisper.

“I want to make this work,” he said. “I really, really want to make this work.”

“We can make it work,” Damon said. “I want to put the time in if you do.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

 

Putting the time in meant _putting the time in_ , it turned out. It meant seeing his own daughter more than once a month. It meant accepting the fact that he was now- somehow- both a father and a stepfather. It meant going to therapy. It meant saying sorry. It meant both of them saying sorry. It meant an interview in the _Sunday Times_ where an overly prurient journalist asked him if he’d always known he was gay- a question so stupid he didn’t dignify it with a response. It was hard. It was worth it.

 

“Do you know any decent cocktails, Gra?” Missy was bounding up to them. She’d only been allowed to have an eighteenth on the condition that it happened in the house, with both of them present, that Damon’s stash of dope went untouched and that no one threw up on a surface that wasn’t wipe-clean. Missy had agreed to these conditions on the counter-condition (she, ever Damon Albarn’s child, made them sign a printed contract) that they stay in the kitchen unless someone’s life was in immediate danger. They sat side-by-side at the wobbly table they’d been meaning to replace for years, watching everything she did like a hawk.

“He only drinks beer, your old man,” Damon piped up.

“I don’t drink at all,” Graham said, “I have never been drunk, nor have I ever taken drugs, nor have I ever had sex. I grew up in a monastery.”

Missy rolled her eyes, retrieved a bottle of Malibu from the cupboard and went back to her friends, who were sitting around the coffee table playing poker. Pepper was somewhere, as well; they could hear someone strumming a Lou Reed song. She was always harder to find than Missy.

“Our daughter can legally drink,” Graham said. “We’re _old_.”

“We’re not old,” Damon said, which was a lie, because he had been sighing and muttering _oof_ every time he got out of a chair for five years now. They had a subscription to _The Guardian_ , and the other night they had watched a BBC Four documentary about bees. They were _old_.

“Do you think we’ve done a good job?” Damon said.

“She smokes pot, doesn’t want to go to university, and she calls us by our first names.”

“Excellent job, then.”

Graham looked out over his little world: his daughters, his husband, his house. How odd. How exceedingly odd. He felt for Damon’s hand and entwined their fingers, and in that moment he was happy.


End file.
